Members of the National Food Suppliers Association say they will not leave the premises of the National Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) until monies owed them are paid in full.

According to them, they are unable to return to their places of abode because creditors are pursuing them for their monies.

“We decided to spend the night here because some of us came from Upper East and Upper West, Bono, Ahafo and from all the regions. They don’t have money to rent hotels and they decided that they would sleep here.

“They can’t go back because creditors are on them. Can you imagine a supplier going for credit from a farmer and up to now, you haven’t paid the farmer? The farmers now say they want to join, they are coming. Mosquitoes are biting them….you can ask the security man, and the Buffer Stock does not care," Secretary to the group, Patrick Effah said on Wednesday.

Members of the National Food Suppliers Association on Tuesday, July 4 spent the night at the premises of NAFCO to demand payment of money owed them for over two years.

The suppliers who travelled from all regions across the country say the government owes them GH¢270 million for food which was supplied to Senior High Schools across the country from 2021 to 2023.

However, NAFCO has not responded to the demands of the group.

A spokesperson of the group, Kwame Amedume who spoke to JoyNews on Tuesday said that it has been the intention of NAFCO not to pay the arrears owed them.

According to him, there has never been an instance of emergency shortage of food in secondary schools as NAFCO claims.

He explained that NAFCO intentionally creates a shortage of food in the secondary schools and then dishes out money to their own people to supply the food.

“You are owing us and you haven’t paid but now you pay people. Now, do you know what they do, they intentionally create a shortage of food in the schools.

“I’m challenging them and telling them that if they like, they should come and tell us where emergency shortage happened or emergencies happen in the secondary schools where they were not having food,” he stressed.

On the back of this, the Secretary to the food suppliers association, Patrick Effah said NAFCO did not have the funds to support the Free SHS when the government implemented the programme.

“They didn’t have anything, it was the suppliers who started with our money to make sure that the Free SHS that the government has brought would be sustained, so we want our money before we leave here," he stressed.

The National Food Suppliers Association also accuses NAFCO of sidelining them and giving contracts to their friends and families.

The group explained that they do not understand how NAFCO is able to pay the new supplier group they have created if they indeed claim not to have money.

"Now, they have divided the work into two, education is doing half and then Buffer Stock is also doing half. This separation that has come, they fall on us the old suppliers and then they have their groups that do the work for them.

"We have been put aside, they are owing us but they get money to pay them (new suppliers). Now the new people that they have formed and are supplying, I want to challenge them, I want the government to come and check in their books how many times they have paid them this year.

"They have paid them like three times. They are owing us, how can they (Buffer Stock) do that? You are owing us and haven't paid, but you are paying people," Kwame Amedume, spokesperson to the group said.

“Pay us and we do the work because when you didn’t have money, and the government didn’t have money, we used our money to supply,” Mr Amedume stressed.